Chapter 9 - THE PERSON BEHIND EVERYTHING
My mother agreed to talk.
But only if I was present.
I didn't want to go.
Rachel told me I didn't have to.
But I needed answers.
We met in a small interview room.
My mother looked older than she had a week earlier.
No makeup.
No jewelry.
No carefully arranged hair.
Just an exhausted woman sitting beneath fluorescent lights.
She looked at me.
“You came.”
“Yes.”
“I knew you would.”
“Who ordered my father's murder?”
She stared at the table.
“Your father wasn't supposed to die.”
I felt my fists tighten.
“Then what was supposed to happen?”
“He was supposed to be scared.”
“By whom?”
“Evan's employer.”
I frowned.
“Who was that?”
Mother whispered:
“Arthur Kane.”
Rachel's face changed.
“That's impossible.”
“Why?”
“He died three years ago.”
Mother shook her head.
“Officially.”
Silence.
Arthur Kane had been my father's former business partner.
A man I remembered from childhood.
He had supposedly died from a heart attack.
Mother explained everything.
Arthur had created the original warehouse development plan.
He wanted the property.
My father refused.
So Arthur began manipulating Diane.
He convinced her that my father was planning to abandon her.
He promised her wealth.
Protection.
Power.
Then Lillian discovered the truth.
Arthur told Diane that if Lillian talked, everything would collapse.
Diane panicked.
The crash happened.
Years later, Arthur returned to the warehouse scheme through shell companies.
He used Evan.
He used Brooke.
He used my mother.
But there was one thing he hadn't anticipated.
My father had recorded everything.
And he'd given copies to Daniel.
Mother looked at me.
“Arthur never wanted your wife dead.”
“Then why was she attacked?”
“Because she found the recording.”
I stood.
“Where is Arthur?”
Mother looked at me.
“He's not dead.”
The room went silent.
“What?”
“He's alive.”
“Where?”
She smiled bitterly.
“You've met him.”
I stared at her.
“Who?”
She whispered:
“Your father's lawyer.”
Rachel's face went white.
“That can't be true.”
But then she remembered.
The old attorney who had handled the estate.
The man who had repeatedly insisted that the warehouse was worthless.
The man who had disappeared after my father's death.
Arthur Kane.
He had been hiding in plain sight.
Detective Reed immediately issued a warrant.
But Arthur was already gone.
We searched every property connected to him.
Nothing.
Then Daniel found a clue.
A bank transfer.
$500,000.
Sent that morning.
To an account in Canada.
We tracked the recipient.
It belonged to a woman named Lillian Mercer.
My father's supposedly dead daughter.
I couldn't breathe.
“She survived.”
Daniel nodded.
“She changed her name.”
We found her in Vancouver.
She had spent twenty-two years believing her father had abandoned her.
She hadn't died.
My mother had lied.
The crash had killed someone else.
Lillian had been badly injured and placed in a hospital under another name.
Arthur had paid someone to falsify the death records.
Lillian had eventually escaped.
Now she was ready to testify.
When I met her, she looked at me for a long time.
Then she said:
“You have your father's eyes.”
I cried.
I hadn't cried when my mother betrayed me.
I hadn't cried when I saw Eliza's shaved head.
But hearing that sentence broke something inside me.
Lillian hugged me.
“I've waited twenty-two years for someone from my family to find me.”
I held her tightly.
“We're here now.”
May you like
She whispered:
“Then let's finish this.”
